Don’t get me wrong. I’m as sentimental and traditional as the next guy. I grew up in Maryland. I went to Cole Field House for the state high school basketball tournament before I got to college. I knew Maryland was a charter member of the ACC. I read about Jim Tatum’s football teams in the ‘50s. I knew of the Terps’ shoddy basketball heritage until a certain balding Norfolk native took over.

I did my own sort of four corners offense in College Park in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, toggling between Cole, Byrd Stadium, classrooms and the Rendezvous (the ‘Vous, for all of you College Park denizens of a certain vintage). I yelled at Jerry Claiborne to throw a pass, at Lefty to run a play, and at bartenders during Happy Hour.

The ACC soon will have nearly as many former Big East schools (5) as charter members (7). The double round-robin basketball schedule is history. Football teams go years without playing each other. The ACC rewarded the Terps’ basketball program by making Pitt its permanent partner. Ah, tradition.

All that said, Maryland is headed to the Big Ten for one reason only. The athletic department is in a financial wringer because former athletic director Debbie Yow managed the budget the way teenagers manage credit cards. Attendance also dropped significantly for football and hoops.

According to the school, the department faced an $8.7 million deficit in 2013 that would escalate to $17.2 million by 2017, if nothing was done. Last summer the school announced that it would cut seven sports for financial reasons.

From the Big Ten’s side, Maryland, as well as Rutgers, is attractive because of location, not competition. More TV sets for the Big Ten Network, more revenue.

If the numbers being thrown around for Big Ten membership are even close to accurate, it would be practically ir-freakin’-responsible for Maryland not to jump. In 2014, Big Ten schools will receive $32 million apiece from the conference’s TV deals, while ACC schools will receive approximately $24 million, according to the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports.

With the D.C.-Maryland TV market and the Rutgers/New Jersey market, that number is projected to rise annually and reach $45 million per school in 2019. Crazy.

What all of this says, or rather what it reinforces, is that college athletics at the highest level are a money grab. Period. Anyone who says differently is lying or willfully ignorant. It’s dressed up with baby-faced kids and cheerleaders and leafy campuses with ivy-covered buildings, which contribute to a gauzy nostalgia that often provides a shield from real scrutiny.

My buddy Doug is a longtime Maryland football season ticket holder, basketball fan and periodic contributor. Though the move nibbles at the traditionalist in him, he takes the competitive view: if more money will permit the athletic department to be solvent and to compete, then off to Columbus and Camp Randall and Ann Arbor we go.

As he pointed out, while Maryland-Purdue football doesn’t set the heart racing, Maryland-Boston College didn’t exactly pack ‘em in, either.

Financial windfall aside, years of following Joe Krivak, Mark Duffner, Ron Vanderlinden, the Fridge and now Randy Edsall give Doug no illusion that the Terps will be anything more than novel diversions for their new Big Ten playmates.

“I’ve watched Maryland lose in the same ACC stadiums for years,” he said. “This gives me a chance to travel and watch them lose in different places.”

“Midwesterners are really nice people,” he said. “I think it’ll take them 3-5 years to fully appreciate how abrasive and obnoxious we are.”

And hey, what do you know, as I’m typing this, the monthly alumni association e-newsletter appears in my inbox. Let’s have a look: holiday shopping tips; a big fire in 1912 that torched the campus; a photo gallery of fall scenery on campus … aaaaand here we are: University of Maryland to join Big Ten Conference. Fourth item down.

Granted, alumni newsletters aren’t just for sports fans. But wouldn’t such a seismic move, one that’s portrayed as beneficial to the entire university, merit more prominent mention?

That’s the other part of this. Maryland president Wallace Loh, chancellor Brit Kirwan and the other honchos talked up how the Big Ten move would benefit the entire school, that it would link the university with other like-minded schools, etc. Yeah, thank goodness the alma mater finally disassociates from academic lightweights such as Duke, Virginia, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and BC.

The Big Ten move helps the entire school inasmuch as the TV money windfall might prevent them from further soaking students, parents and taxpayers with increases and hidden fees that would make cable and phone companies blush.

By the way, with the copious amounts of TV money everyone will pull in, explain to me again why “cost of attendance” and extra stipends are a non-starter for scholarship athletes.

My wish is that in future conference realignment chatter, whenever a big-time college administrator talks about academic missions and student-athlete welfare, that someone behind him or her blasts one of those little hand-held airhorns, as a kind of B.S. alarm.

Former Maryland hoops star Tom McMillen, an ex-Congressman and current member of the Board of Regents, blistered the process in a Washington Post op-ed piece. He didn’t necessarily disagree with the decision, only in how it was reached: no discussion, no deliberation. Just Loh and a ‘star chamber’ making the call in about two weeks and then force-feeding the Board and the troops.

That’s not how a university conducts business. That’s how a business conducts business.